I should tell you
by lauren lachrymose
Summary: Goodbye. [two. Jet]
1. i'm sorry

**a/n: **I'm actually going to write a small series. :D Yay!  
This will be a collection of oneshots centered around different characters and different things they wish they had said, but didn't.  
First up, Katara.

- x -

**F I V E T H I N G S **

_i s h o u l d h a v e s a i d _

- x -

For the first time in my life, the world was made of ice. It was frozen and harsh and bitter and everything the South Pole was to others, but not to me.

Until now.

A lot of the snow had been melted away by rage and hatred that knew nothing of reason, of peace, but the air was _cold_. The frigid wind stung my eyes as I stared blankly at the arm resting lazily in the entryway to our home. It was limp and familiar, with a hand I'd held countless times.

But it was different, somehow.

It was much paler than I remembered, with dark splatters of a color I hadn't known until it poked its fingers into everything and ripped it all apart.

I vaguely recall Gran Gran pulling me into the back of the hut, the lines on her face deepening as fear dripped from her eyes. I was young, and did not understand. I knew that I was frightened, and I knew that outside, people were dying. But I could not comprehend why mother wasn't back yet, why I was suddenly unable to cry, or why the arm in the doorway wasn't enveloping me in a hug.

Frost had edged its way into the corners of my eyes, blurring my vision and making my head ache. It was cold. So, so cold. Why was it so cold, if there was so much fire?

Gran Gran started to hum the same tune mother would lull us to sleep with every night. (_Sokka would whine, saying that it wasn't right for a warrior to listen to lullabies, but I would look over and see him fall backwards into a dream._) The night before, mother and father had been talking to the other grown-ups after dinner, and I had taken advantage of their conversation to stay up late playing soldier with Sokka and Kaila, a friend from infancy. Just as Kaila and I were about to ambush Sokka and his troop of penguins, mother's angry voice had lifted me up and put me to bed.

It was then that I threw my first tantrum.

("_No, little Katara? Sweet Katara? Good Katara?"_)

Little Katara clumsily threw a ball of snow at her mother's hip.

Sweet Katara tossed angry, seven-year-old insults at her mother's face.

Good Katara shouted an arrow stringed with words at her mother's heart:

"I hate you!"

_Rip._

"I wish you were dead!"

_Tear._

"I never want to see you again!"

_Burn._

The memory startled me. Why wasn't mommy back yet?

I tore myself from the iron grip my grandmother had me in, and quickly clamored over to the arm that shouldn't have been so familiar, but was. I ignored the frantic calls and trembling voices that had once been strong. All I could see was the discarded arm, and the person who was attached to it.

"Mom?"

She didn't move.

"Mommy?"

Why wasn't she moving?

"_Mommy!_"

She was gone, gone, gone, and it was still cold, cold, cold. I stood there, shivering in my parka, frozen to the floor. She wasn't smiling, she wasn't singing, she wasn't even _here_. That wasn't my mother. My mother was happy and lively and warm like the sun that we could never quite reach, even if we stood on our tippy-toes. This shell of a woman was icy and ashen and _dead_.

So where was she, then?

Where was my mother?

I had something to tell her, something important that she was too busy for during breakfast. I needed to tell her! She needed to know!

"I need to tell you sorry, mom." Tiny series of noises marched out of my throat and around the body in front of me in a disorganized mess of letters that tripped and stumbled as they progressed. "'Cause I am."

The savages outside set my whole life aflame.

"_I'm sorry._"


	2. goodbye

**a/n: **I wanted to do this one differently than the last. Sorry for the abundance of italics.  
Buh, I love writing Jet. :D

--

Jet was scared.

Correction, Jet was _petrified_.

Inside, he was breaking into a million tiny pieces with rib bones sticking where they weren't supposed to and his heart beating a mile a minute and damn, did it hurt. With each beat, a knife twisted in its place in his chest, but he was so frightened and couldn't calm down which just made it beat faster and it hurt, oh _god _it hurt.

Outside, he was smiling. Smiling and reassuring and accepting his fate, lies flowing out automatically to comfort his friends (_but mostly himself_). He had always been a smooth talker, but now he wasn't sure he could convince anyone that he was honestly "_going to be fine_".

Because he wasn't.

It was simple, it was inevitable, and it was too soon. He wasn't finished yet, had so many things he needed to do, so many things he needed to say.

"_Hey, Bee, remember last spring when we celebrated your birthday? I told you I would get you anything at all, anything you wanted. You were stubborn and said you didn't want anything I could offer. At first, I was hurt, but I eventually figured it out. It was kind of hard to miss – no offence. I could see the way you looked at him from across the table during dinner, and how you always asked him to teach you how to hold a bow properly, even when I'd taught you how to shoot a bow and arrow myself. I then knew what you wanted wasn't mine to give. This shocked me, and angered me a little bit. I was selfish and naïve, and didn't want our family to be ruined. So when I told you that Longshot had gone on an important mission with Pipsqueak that evening and couldn't make it, I lied. Well, not completely; he really was on a mission with Pipsqueak, but it wasn't important. Just something to keep him busy and to miss our little feast. You were disappointed, and I had felt horrible about it afterwards, but I never told you the truth. So here it is. I apologize, and I thought you should know. It's stupid, but it's been bugging me for a while. I love you, Bee. You are a great asset to the team, and one of the best friends a guy could ask for – even if you _are _a girl. Keep the rest of the guys in line for me, will ya?" _

He couldn't move his lips to form the words. His vision blurred; he could barely make out the figure of Smellerbee's face hovering over his own, and could hardly feel her hands stroking his hair anymore.

Jet's time was running out.

"_Longshot, I know you don't say much, so to honor that I'll keep this short and sweet. Take care of Bee, all right? She needs you more than you know. Oh, and if you break her heart, I'll haunt ya, you got that?"_

He could've sworn he heard Shot speak, but the words melted into each other, leaving only a slow rumble of sound._  
_

"_Katara – look, I'm sorry. When I told you I'd changed, I was being honest. I changed for you. I – I wanted to make you happy. I needed you. I _still _need you. But Aang needs you more, and I respect that. Just know that whatever guy is able to heal _you _instead has my approval. He obviously deserves you more than I did."_

Blue eyes, warm laugh, soft hair. Water. Her voice was fading, fading, falling, gone.

"_Okay, Aang, best of luck with the whole Avatar thing. I have faith in you. I think I read somewhere that the Avatar can contact spirits in the Spirit World – don't hesitate to try and find me, okay?"_

The world was dark, then bright, then dark again. Colors swam before his eyes, shining like the stars he and the freedom fighters would watch on nights when they had nothing better to do.

"_Lee. I'm still not sure if you're a firebender or not, and I don't know if I can trust you, but since you didn't hunt me down and try to kill me I'll guess that you're an okay firebender. Or a really pissed off tea-shop assistant. Either way, I want to tell you that I'm not sorry. I'm not. So don't think I am if you ever find out I'm… gone. Because I'm not. But I still think you would have made a good member of the team."_

The pain stopped. His eyes weren't working, and his body wasn't responding to his brain. It was cold and black and his arms were tingling, but he couldn't move to do anything about it. It scared Jet, not being in control, and why was he so tired all of the sudden? He was sluggish and slow and wanted to sleep for a very long time.

So he let go with one final word:

_Goodbye_.


End file.
